What happens if the 49ers fire Chip Kelly–and go one-and-done two straight years? It would probably only get worse

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Chip Kelly, center is introduced as the new head coach of the San Francisco 49ers by team CEO Jed York, left and general manager Trent Baalke during a press conference at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Wednesday morning, Jan. 20, 2016. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Question for the 49ers management wizards who constructed this 1-7 team and are currently trying to figure out what to do/who to blame next:

If you eventually decide that Chip Kelly isn’t your guy and set him up to be fired (or try to push him into quitting) by early-January, who in the world are you hiring next?

Maybe Jim Tomsula, part III?

That is the essential sticking point here, which Jed York so often seems to forget: Once you start down a bad
road, the more panicky you get, the more you make moves just impulsively to seem like you’re fixing everything, the worse it gets.

They fired Jim Harbaugh despite his success just to spite him, convinced themselves Tomsula was the answer, had to fire him after only one year, and now it’s possible they’re lining up Kelly for a second straight one-and-done tenure.

That is not how good or even mediocre teams do this, but I guess sometimes the Yorks don’t understand these things at all.

The 49ers have gotten themselves into this deep mess by churning through so many coaches so often and slapping together such a lousy roster that even if it’s clear that Kelly isn’t going to turn it around… they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to attract a better candidate to replace him if they fire him in December or January.

Unless they fire Trent Baalke first (in which case they would probably keep Kelly, anyway).

Then hire a good GM. (Who might not get along with Kelly.)

Which all would cost money and could unsettle the Yorks, who don’t like to hire powerful outsiders who might tell them how badly they’ve screwed up everything.

Then that new GM would have to be empowered to hire a good coach, which also would cost a lot of money and that guy might also unnerve the Yorks and now we’re talking about multiples of things that the Yorks have tried to avoid for more than a decade.

See the problem here?

I’m explaining all this because I think the stage is now set for a classic 49ers internal battle–at 1-7, Baalke’s supporters will do anything to make sure the blame isn’t directed at him and maybe Kelly starts doing some of that himself.

So Baalke’s guys will naturally point it at Kelly and Kelly’s guys might point at Baalke, and I think Jed York is conditioned to agree with Baalke, who has survived many losses and many purges before.

I don’t know if Baalke survives this one, too, but the entire football operation is his creation, so just about everybody Jed runs into will be lining up behind Baalke.

The likeliest path for Baalke to save his job is to convince Jed that this roster is full of talent and it’s being wasted by Kelly and that Baalke can hire a great coach that will get the 49ers right back in the playoff hunt.

I question every bit of that, but never discount the Yorks’ ability to hear only what they want to hear, to embrace the easiest path (for them), and to feel compelled to trust their secretive GM.

–OK, let’s preface all further analysis by noting that Kelly certainly hasn’t done much to solidify his hold on this job and that it may be true that his best spot is in college, not the NFL, which any solid management group might eventually conclude, whether it’s in a few weeks or a few seasons.

(Psst, we’ll circle back to this one when the 49ers put together a solid management group.)

–Let’s also note that Kelly has very little talent to work with at the moment… and almost certainly knew that when he took this job–questions at quarterback, questions at WR, questions at linebacker, questions almost everywhere, habitual political intrigue inside team HQ, usually initiated by the owner and GM.

–Oh, and let’s remember that part of the reason Kelly’s staff is so weak is that good candidates shied away from this volatile situation. For good reason.

–This wasn’t a great job when Tomsula took it, or when he was fired, or when Kelly took it (or when Hue Jackson exited the negotiations), and it won’t get more attractive for a new coach after Kelly departs.

–If the 49ers pull the plug again after only one season, that would almost certainly make it even worse. What assistants are going to want to join the next 49ers staff knowing that the last two staffs were blown out after only one year?
But again, the strong pattern is for Baalke to line up against Kelly at some point, and for Baalke to have an inherent advantage.

We can tell the knives are out when the 49ers media surrogates start opining about big changes, and yesterday radio voice Ted Robinson (usually a Jed Cipher) went on KNBR and pretty directly criticized the 49ers coaching staff.

Paraphrase of what I heard Robinson say: The roster isn’t worse than last year under Tomsula, but the results are worse, so it’s time to ask why.

So… I think this is headed towards Baalke walking through 49ers HQ wondering if he should fire Kelly and then go after somebody like Tom Coughlin or Mike Shanahan in 2017.
I think both guys were great NFL coaches; I think there’s a reason both are out now.

Or to put it another way: Would you want to hire any coach whose standards are so low that he would be interested in coming to work for Baalke and York’s 49ers?

I include Kelly in this, by the way. There was a reason no other NFL team talked to him last offseason and he isn’t exactly reinventing football so far this season.

But he was the best the 49ers could do back then.

He still probably is the best they can do, unless they fire Baalke first, and that, as you all know, is all up to Jed, who has done anything possible to avoid doing that for years now.

Dieter Kurtenbach says the San Francisco Giants are embarrassing themselves by fixating on the luxury tax instead of being more aggressive in rebuilding their 98-loss team. Also, he talks about why the 49ers need to pay Jimmy Garoppolo now, or else.